Pally Tank... Why Bother?

[Meat-Head]

After looking at several of the build ideas coming out of here I was wondering something? The job of a tank is to hold agrro not be the best dps so with that said if your that tight on feats drop PA and focus on you sources of threat gen to not only compensate nut you'll actually be ahead of the game. Granted your non-tanking dps will be lower but is 5 points on a trash mob that's probably gonna end up insta killed anyway by the caster with the itchy mouse finger that important.

agree that PA is kinda optional. I don't like it. But something has to give.

[Meat-Head]

You dont need Shield Mastery if you take CE.

I go with: toughness, twf, itwf, gtwf, otwf, twfd, dodge, IC:Slashing and CE. If your willing to sacrifice a few points of AC, think about swapping out dodge or twfd for extend and/or quicken.

Not on a Pally you don't. I count 9 feats in that list silly billy.

Something to consider about AC tanking (and it pains me to say this as I have just grinded out a lot of AC gear) is that in the current state of the game you probably want the maintank to get hit a lot so the fvs crown can proc the fortification debuff to the raid boss.

Now you're ruining my day. :P

[Xenostrata]

You can not comment there unless you play a paladin. and no you do not need quicken. The casting time has been shortened so much that its alomost imposible to fail. (Yes ive tanked LoB and had no problems) Neither do you need extend its nice yes, takes your Zeal and Divine Favour to arnound 4.40, but it is not needed. You can even use Madstone rage if you want. (Madstone rage is a 2 minute buff, Zeal and Divine Favour 2.15 and 2.22. You will not get the Madstone Rage proc if you are in stance so clicky away)


Edit: You do not need to make a concentration check if you do not get hit. wich is the point of rolling a DoS or SD ...... so you dont get hit.

You missed that whole bit about Jial, didn't you?

Yes, the casting time is reduced - it's been reduced to about the casting speed of a sorcerer. However, on both Jial AND my Sorcerer I will still get hit while casting and be forced to make a concentration check that I have no hope of succeeding on. Sure, on an AC build the plan is to not get hit, but if you plan on tanking the Lord of Blades on any difficulty higher than normal, or any boss in an epic quest, then your going to end up disappointed, because they've all got +90 or more to hit making your "pure ac" build worthless.

[Jendrak]

Something to consider about AC tanking (and it pains me to say this as I have just grinded out a lot of AC gear) is that in the current state of the game you probably want the maintank to get hit a lot so the fvs crown can proc the fortification debuff to the raid boss.

This isn't as big of an issue as one would think since guards and other on-hit procs work on grazing hits which happen alot on higher end content even if they don't do any damage.

[Xenostrata]

DM3 is not a wet dream and i see after saying 2tr not pratical you now looking at it but why bother with touthness take past life barby instead dose the same job almost (3hp less if i rember right) opens up touthnes line and gives bonus to intimidate

stop wasting points in con again save the 4 stat points on creation by droping it down from 16 to 14 is only 20hp (24 in stance) is only 3% of you hit point at 800-900 as your saying it realy dosent matter at cap.

as for dex 15 ok if you want to lvl up on a 2wf i will agree but just leser tr when you get a +3 dex tome (Dam i advatised the store again)

as for using scrolls VoD, HoX i wasent even using scrolls in there when lvl cap was 16 and ToD solo heled it with no scrolls or pots i fined i get more scrolls destroyed by spells than i use. as for LoB is the only place i wory about manna for healing but iv never drank more then 2 pots a run in there so fare (mainly because the main tank is looking at 95 ac on a pali and can dish the damage with thf d aex and wet dream DM3 and smites DS). mass heling in von use more pots avraging about 5 in there maby i need to put the pots away and take my heel scrolls outand take the wand amp line then you healing amp migh be usefull!

750 hp, heals doing 500 leting them drop 250 or lower it will only takes 1 spell to kill them so healing amp dose nothing on a fvs healer a clr it dose even less.

but we all have our own apinions i keep playing it the way i think works best and i get healeres sending me tell's ask me to tank in LoB so im happy with him.

Edit: dont have quicken never been a problem but dam ce doubles the sp uses on buffing in a fight you do need to up ya sp a bit or you run out

Looking through this mass of text spaghetti, I have a few things to point out.

TR3 is mostly unreachable for most people, as said before. However, I'm assuming this plan was meant for Kashil who is currently on his second life and has no plan (that I'm aware of) of taking a barbarian life.

On a tank, no matter what class, the term "wasting points on con" does not apply, especially considering how few toughness enhancements a paladin can afford to take.

If you're not using scrolls, you're doing it wrong, and I hope no one donates any pots to you when you do use them because you are wasting your own sp.

[Xenostrata]

This isn't as big of an issue as one would think since guards and other on-hit procs work on grazing hits which happen alot on higher end content even if they don't do any damage.

Not quite true. Grazing hits happen based on the difficulty you are in, not the level of the content. For instance, normal ToD or LoB will only have grazing hits on 19-20 iirc.

Even on elite/epic, grazing hits are only on 13-20, which means that the fvs shield of condemnation proc isn't going to stay stacked.

[Meat-Head]

Looking through this mass of text spaghetti, I have a few things to point out.

TR3 is mostly unreachable for most people, as said before. However, I'm assuming this plan was meant for Kashil who is currently on his second life and has no plan (that I'm aware of) of taking a barbarian life.

Correct.

[Edit: I like Spaghetti.]

On a tank, no matter what class, the term "wasting points on con" does not apply, especially considering how few toughness enhancements a paladin can afford to take.

Yessir.

If you're not using scrolls, you're doing it wrong, and I hope no one donates any pots to you when you do use them because you are wasting your own sp.

Ding Ding Ding. We have a winner.

PREVENT pot usage and PLAN for needing more SP later than you think, by reducing SP usage with scrolls where practical. It's just smart to do this. I didn't even know that was a question.

[Jendrak]

Not quite true. Grazing hits happen based on the difficulty you are in, not the level of the content. For instance, normal ToD or LoB will only have grazing hits on 19-20 iirc.

Even on elite/epic, grazing hits are only on 13-20, which means that the fvs shield of condemnation proc isn't going to stay stacked.

I keep forgetting that mobs use a different calc then players but still only 13-20 lol that's still a pretty large margin and that's even assuming that they can hit you at all which ain't gonna happen especially on elite or epics.

Normal runs don't even matter because none of the forts were changed for these difficulties so it's a non-point and hard wasn't adjusted enough,if any, for it to matter.

[countfitz]

They aren't as good tanks, or DPS, IN RAIDS, where at least 2 healers and a bard (or artificer?) buff them and all the other jobs are being done for them, like heals. VERY TRUE. But, getting to cap on a fighter, as a tank, well, you know why almost no tanks exist endgame?

Cause it's almost unbearable. Not being able to heal (assuming no silver flame pots, or assuming you can heal, now you just did every crappy "tomb" quest in necro 1-3 for favor) having to carry every pot in the game, missing saves left and right, making sure to use every tactic feat in just the right places instead of smites (super easy) and so on, it makes the game far less enjoyable for many "casual" players.

Then, lets talk equipment. An AC tank requires some of the most specialized equipment, which is some of the most difficult to get in the game. Add to that a fighters need to then get all the specialized equipment a Paladin gets for free, (hell, just a cheap DR breaker vs. grinding for a Min II or Cannith Crafting) means you can cap, finish your AC build, and start "playing" the game (in the South Park reference of "now we can finally start playing") in half the time.

So, that is why people will still play Paladins end game as tanks. Convenience and fun. Still, is that enough to build a tank from? Probably not, since if you're going through the time and effort to build an almost useless build, Tank, then you might as well go all the way. I guess I'm with the OP in the end, and by that I mean why are we discussing tanks in the first place?

[maddmatt70]

I am not sure you proved your point OP. First of all there is no reason why a DOS tank could not be 18 paladin 2 fighter which gives 2 feats. Second of all paladins generally have a higher charisma score so they do not need to invest as many feats in intimidate to get their score higher so they save feats there. Third the paladin can also do self healing in a variety of forms such as lay on hands, unyielding soverienty (if tank dies they dispell their own deaths after being raised) and cure serious wounds (this can be buffed up a friend of mine has a pally tank that can hit himself for 350 cure seroius wounds). Fourth a pally tank can easily have about 900ish hp without gimping the build which is plenty of hp for tanking.

Quite frankly I do not agree with your claims that Fighters are superior tanks at all, but rather it seems the devs did a good job on the fighter/paladin tank builds because both groups have their + and -s...

[Xenostrata]

I keep forgetting that mobs use a different calc then players but still only 13-20 lol that's still a pretty large margin and that's even assuming that they can hit you at all which ain't gonna happen especially on elite or epics.

Normal runs don't even matter because none of the forts were changed for these difficulties so it's a non-point and hard wasn't adjusted enough,if any, for it to matter.

13-20 =2/5 of the time. Considering that an FvS has trouble getting a full stack when hit 95% of the time, there is very little chance of getting it to stack at all, let alone up to 5.

On elite and epics, they are going to hit you. Deal with it. Unless you have 110 ac and can still pump out 500+ TPS, then you are out of luck - and even then, you're still going to get hit by LoB on all difficulties other than normal.

[Xenostrata]

I am not sure you proved your point OP. First of all there is no reason why a DOS tank could not be 18 paladin 2 fighter which gives 2 feats. Second of all paladins generally have a higher charisma score so they do not need to invest as many feats in intimidate to get their score higher so they save feats there. Third the paladin can also do self healing in a variety of forms such as lay on hands, unyielding soverienty (if tank dies they dispell their own deaths after being raised) and cure serious wounds (this can be buffed up a friend of mine has a pally tank that can hit himself for 350 cure seroius wounds). Fourth a pally tank can easily have about 900ish hp without gimping the build which is plenty of hp for tanking.

Quite frankly I do not agree with your claims that Fighters are superior tanks at all, but rather it seems the devs did a good job on the fighter/paladin tank builds because both groups have their + and -s...

By your description, I get the sense that you feel a few self heals is worth 11 bonus feats. Being able to self heal is close to worthless in a raid situation, only mattering if the boss is almost dead and the healer is out of comission. Fighters, on the other hand, do not need to sacrifice anything when it comes to feat selection.

[Beethoven]

You cant have it all you know. Its called balance.

Paladins cast spells, among unique habilities, fighters does not. If you start giving feats and whatnot to paladins, whos to make tank fighters then?

It's not quite that simple though. You can't just slap a couple abilities and spells on a class and call it balanced. Paladin's have a /lot/ going for them. They get:

* Lay on hands for uninteruptable emergency healing
* Spells for Divine healing
* Useful Divine buffs
* Exalted Smites for extra burst damage
* Divine Sacrifice for extra burst damage
* Divine Power for extra damage
* Divine Righteousness for extra hate
* Paladin Aura for extra saves and AC
* Fear Immunity
* Disease Immunity
* DoS get a second stance for extra healing amplification.

You'd think with all the perks you'd see Paladins all over the place, but you don't. The problem with Paladin's is not potential, the problem is cost. What Paladin's get for free is divine buffs, fear and disease immunity. Getting any other of the Paladin abilities to a useful level comes at a cost and the cost for each is steep. Like someone already pointed out, the highest level of Divine Power requires a base Charisma of 20 (before gear). So, to get access to it requires putting a lot of build points towards Charisma. That's points other melees can easily afford put towards Strength or Con.

Similar could be said about Smites. Maxing your Smites out is costly. It requires buying extra smites (which can be as much as 10 AP right there). Then you need to acquire Exalted Smites (potentially another 10 AP) and Divine Sacrifice (another 10 AP). Divine self healing really is only useful if you invest in Healing Enhancements (also very costly) and having a useful Paladin Aura isn't exactly free either.

What further hurts particularly the DoS is that Defensive Stance received a nice buff in the recent update, but Glorious Stand has been woefully neglected. Sure, extra healing amplification is nice but you go DoS you might as well invest some into AC. It's really not that hard getting a working AC for non-epic content as DoS and given some basic gear the damage mitigation of the higher AC is likely larger than the extra healing amplification and DR. Glorious Stance would potentially be useful against epic bosses (where AC commonly fails). However, the DR of that stance is /epic and thus doesn't work. You also loose 20% HP and 75% hate compared to Defense Stance, which hurts and usually makes Defensive Stance the superior choice in epics too. Also, Glorious Stance has a timer to consider.

Stalwards get extra Intimidate, extra DR and extra AC above DoS which is simply better. Now add to that most the Paladin hate and damage amplification comes from boosts/clickies and recent changes to elite and epic raid bosses made that less useful than it used to be (as fights take longer, thus builds relying on clickies/boosts will run out of them quicker) and it's no surprisse most flavor of the month tanks are Stalwards and the rest are largely 2 Monk / 18 Paladin splits giving even me the impression for a lot of players out there the only saving grace of the DoS tank vs the SW tank is the former splash with Monk better.

So, while I don't agree Paladin/DoS are gimp or won't make for good tanks, I do think they could use a little love to balance them out. I am not talking about giving them extra feats. What I don't think would hurt is:

a) going through Enhancements and either lowering pre-requisites or costs of some of them. Give them access to Exalted Smites and Divine Sacrifices earlier or remove the steep Extra Smites requirement. I generally think Divine spells amplification should be changed to the same structure as Arcane (1 AP per level). Reduce the costs for Aura buffs. I don't mean it to be easy for a Paladin to maximize all their abilities, but I find as things are raising their special abilities is signficantly more expansive than it is for other classes (ie: fighters and weapon specializations and tactical feats, Barbarians and Power/Hardy rage, Rogues and Sneak attack enhancements). Seriously between me and my wife I build my fair share of rogues, monks, rangers, fighters and barbarians and never found myself having to make so many hard choices as with a Paladin to the point all the stuff I cannot afford became actually frustrating.
b) buff Glorious Stance some to make it more competitive a choice by either giving it +75% hate gen, +20% HP or both.

[Jendrak]

13-20 =2/5 of the time. Considering that an FvS has trouble getting a full stack when hit 95% of the time, there is very little chance of getting it to stack at all, let alone up to 5.

On elite and epics, they are going to hit you. Deal with it. Unless you have 110 ac and can still pump out 500+ TPS, then you are out of luck - and even then, you're still going to get hit by LoB on all difficulties other than normal.

Looking back at my previous post it occurs that typing for a phone at work I need to be more careful about re-reading for correctness (**** you autocomplete).

What I meant to say was that on elite and epic your going to get hit maybe that wasn't clear or maybe your just frothing at the mouth to trying and score some rep. Who knows.

As to your point about only getting hit 2/5's of the time you kinda shot yourself in the foot since "on elite and epic they are going to hit you, Deal with it". So thanks for provin my point that this isn't as big of an issue as some think it is.

[azrael4h]

On any character, no matter what class, the term "wasting points on con" does not apply,

This FTW.

CON is a Primary stat.

As for healing, I carry a stack of mass CMW and a stack of Heal on all of my characters at a level to use them or can UMD them. As someone who capped a Cleric and still has a capped FvS, both of whom considered healing to be a focus beyond the offensive casting and melee respectively that they were built to do, if the main tank I'm supposed to heal doesn't have healing amp, I want a better tank in that spot. I play divine casters, I don't ask for pots, I don't ask for scrolls, I demand HEALING AMPLIFICATION, darn your eyes.

The best tank I ever healed was a Paladin with a single pally past life, the human amp up to second tier IIRC, 20% on a ToD ring, and the ship buff 10%. 1.05*1.2*1.2*1.1 = 166% (rounded) amp. Just with that, I never hit him with anything but a heal scroll. Was a profitable run of VoD, if I recall correctly.

[maddmatt70]

By your description, I get the sense that you feel a few self heals is worth 11 bonus feats. Being able to self heal is close to worthless in a raid situation, only mattering if the boss is almost dead and the healer is out of comission. Fighters, on the other hand, do not need to sacrifice anything when it comes to feat selection.

What do those bonus feats really add? Seriously what are we talking about more toughness feats? Some tactics feats which others in the raid party can have? My pally tank has outrageous saves as well by the way. If the devs add more useful feats then the fighter might have an advantage, but they have to add many more useful feats. By the way self heal and healing is not worthless at all you can heal yourself and kiters. The pally tank I was talking about helped me heal the kiter at the end in epic lob.

[Xenostrata]

Looking back at my previous post it occurs that typing for a phone at work I need to be more careful about re-reading for correctness (**** you autocomplete).

What I meant to say was that on elite and epic your going to get hit maybe that wasn't clear or maybe your just frothing at the mouth to trying and score some rep. Who knows.

As to your point about only getting hit 2/5's of the time you kinda shot yourself in the foot since "on elite and epic they are going to hit you, Deal with it". So thanks for provin my point that this isn't as big of an issue as some think it is.

My point is this - if you plan to build for ac, you are either going to be in a situation where the fvs aura doesn't proc OR all of those months spent grinding are going to be rendered useless by an epic mob with +95 to-hit. So, your examples of having the fort debuff working on normal or having usable AC in elite/epic weren't going to work.

[Xenostrata]

What do those bonus feats really add? Seriously what are we talking about more toughness feats? Some tactics feats which others in the raid party can have? My pally tank has outrageous saves as well by the way. If the devs add more useful feats then the fighter might have an advantage, but they have to add many more useful feats. By the way self heal and healing is not worthless at all you can heal yourself and kiters. The pally tank I was talking about helped me heal the kiter at the end in epic lob.

Considering a paladin can expect to have toughness, one set of combat (thf/twf), improved critical, one combat stance, and a metamagic or shield feat, I think fighters get a huge amount from their bonus feats.

Fighters can get +3 to-hit, +4 damage, both combat stances, full shield feats, one or both combat lines, imp crit in multiple types if they so please, Stunning Blow, and have extra left over for a few extra Toughness feats. Hell, if they want to, they can afford to take Dodge and TWB as well.

And again, saves, while nice, are not deal-breakers, especially since it is extremely easy to meet end game save requirements.

[Lighti]

You missed that whole bit about Jial, didn't you?

Yes, the casting time is reduced - it's been reduced to about the casting speed of a sorcerer. However, on both Jial AND my Sorcerer I will still get hit while casting and be forced to make a concentration check that I have no hope of succeeding on. Sure, on an AC build the plan is to not get hit, but if you plan on tanking the Lord of Blades on any difficulty higher than normal, or any boss in an epic quest, then your going to end up disappointed, because they've all got +90 or more to hit making your "pure ac" build worthless.

Then all i can say is you playing your Jial wrong. You do not need quicken. If you take it you are wasting a feat on a already feat starved class. Quite simply cast the spells after he attacks. You wont get a concentration roll as he isnt hitting you as you cast it due to the gap between each attack. Then also factor in AC (why you tanking if he hits you, Let the highest hp toon tank instead), and between both you will fail maybe 1 in 100 times you cast it.

[DarkieUK]

Correct.

[Edit: I like Spaghetti.]



Yessir.



Ding Ding Ding. We have a winner.

PREVENT pot usage and PLAN for needing more SP later than you think, by reducing SP usage with scrolls where practical. It's just smart to do this. I didn't even know that was a question.

splat

how do you avoid using pots when my pot usage in vod tod hox is 0 go back and read again i cant rember the last time i acepted a pot of any one dont need them

use pots in evon6 as mas healing so whats a scroll going to do? my barby uses more pots by giving them away than my healer

have you healed a tank with 50 ac in lob scrolls dont cut it 2 pots is nothing compared to some EDQ and EVON iv used due to lack of dps

so what if he hasent got a past life as a barby my point still stands the past life is better then touthness so slide down the snake and start again

con is a wast 2 dam or 24hp out of 800 you said earlya that what its down to